This invention has particular utility for testing telephone cables that contain large numbers of conductor pairs although it will also have application where multiconductor cables, including cables other than telephone cables, require splicing for purposes other than testing. After a cable has been manufactured it is necessary to test each of the conductors for continuity and shorting and it is also desirable to perform 100% testing for other electrical properties such as conductor resistance, capacitance, cross-talk, and insulation dielectric strength. When it is considered that cables are being sold with as many as 3600 pairs, it will be appreciated that a significant fraction of the cost of manufacturing such cables resides in the labor spent for testing the completed product. For this reason computerized automated testing is now widely applied whereby the switching of each of the conductors into a sequence of test circuits and a print-out of the results may be accomplished with a minimum of direct labor. This known automated testing apparatus, however, still requires that the ends of the cables be stripped of their jackets and armor or shielding, and that the individual conductors be spread out and separated from one another and connected by hand to the clips of a panel board. Much of the potential advantage of computerized testing as now practiced is not realized because of the continuing need for manual labor to connect the individual conductors of cables under test.